Saturday, September 01, 2007

Who won?

Pointing to the clock on the wall I showed them where the little hand needed to be to show ten o’clock. It was only 9.30am but another half hour should do I thought. L2 looked on very disinterestingly at my attempt to teach ‘the time’ and how-it-would-be-good-to-wait-a-while.

It had been a morning of contrasts with my two grandies staying at Granma’s for the day. E3 (and 7/8ths) was normally the one who reneged on breakfast but to my surprise, today two slices of ‘tana toast had been consumed. L2 was decidedly not eating! Trying to tempt a two year old’s palate with things like ‘tana toast, honey toast, Cheerios and even porridge was not working. “Porrich” he said. “Great” I said. Either he’d given in with a bit of resignation – or Granma had won – with a bit of cajoling! The porrich was prepared but they say ‘you can lead a horse to water but not make him drink’ – don’t they? The ‘porrich’ was definitely not going to be on the menu this morning for this little lad.

Which was why when it came to asking for biscuits and then ice cream sticks, a time was set!

“It’s on 10 Ganma!”

Oh?? This is where Granma realizes she hasn’t spelled out it was the small black hand that needed to be on the 10 – not the thin red second hand! That corrected, another 20 minutes to go.

The time came. Out came the ice cream on sticks. Red for E3 (and 7/8) and yellow for L2. Out we went to sit on the chairs in the sun – the best place in the world for eating ice cream on sticks at 10am on a beautiful morning!

All this time, there had been a constant chatter from E3 (and 7/8) who is a great conversationalist. L2 meanwhile was quiet. Obviously enjoying the ‘treat’ the slurping and licking came to a halt and looking at me, cherub-like, he pronounced “I win.”